On digital crossings in Europe

Ponzanesi, Sandra and Leurs, Koen (2014) On digital crossings in Europe. Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture, 5 (1). pp. 3-22. ISSN 2040-4344

Preview

PDF Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (742kB) | Preview

Abstract

‘On digital crossings in Europe’ explores the entanglements of digital media and migration beyond the national and mono-ethnic focus. We argue how borders, identity and affectivity have been destabilized and reconfigured through medium-specific technological affordances, opting for a comparative and postcolonial framework that focuses on diversity in conjunction with cosmopolitan aspirations. Internet applications make it possible to sustain new forms of diaspora and networks, which operate within and beyond Europe, making issues of ethnicity, nationality, race and class not obsolete but transformed. It is therefore important and timely to analyse how these reconfigurations take place and affect everyday life. Using a critical approach to digital tools that avoids utopian notions of connectivity and borderlessness, this article highlights the dyssymmetries and tensions produced by the ubiquitousness of digital connectivity. It further introduces the different contributions to the special issue, making connections and tracing relations among themes and methods and sketching main patterns for further research. It also offers a panorama of other related studies and projects in the field, which partake in a critical reassessment of the enabling power of digital media and their divisive implications for new forms of surveillance, online racism and ‘economic’ inequality, which we gather under the heading of postcolonial digital humanities.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Jour...
Additional Information:	© 2014 Intellect Ltd
Divisions:	Media and Communications
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HE Transportation and Communications T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2014 09:18
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 00:38
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/56884

Actions (login required)

View Item